ON PURE KICK EL. 7I> 



durable, and little inferior to (hat on iron; but nickel become* 

 ilfelf magnetieal, or acquires polarity, by the touch, and even 

 in pari by finking it with a hammer, or filing it, with the pre- 

 cautions fuitable for producing this eflreft. I difcovered the 

 latter property by prefenting to the magnet a flip of forged 

 nickel; when, notwithstanding it was poliflied by the file, it 

 adhered more feebly to the magnet than other flips lefs poliflied ; 

 but on my prefenting its other extremity to the magnet, it ad- 

 hered to it with great force. It likewife attracted by either 

 fide not only iron needle^ but plates of nickel half arUnch 

 fquare, which it raufed to move about on a fmooth fable. 



The property which nickel poflefles of becoming magnetic Its magnetic 



,/-.-, , , ., , . . U i<# • , property weak- . 



is not deftrOyed, though weakened by its alloy with copper; ened by copper, 



but arfenic deftroys it completely. I had frequent opportuni- deftroyed by 



ties of making this obfervation in the courfe of my experiments. Magnetic and 



Some nickel, from which I had feparated the iron * and the malleable in P ro- 



arfenic in the humid wav, and which I had afterwards reduced porUon Co lts 

 - ' purity» 



with the addition of a combufiible fubflance, was malleable, 

 and attracted the magnet, though not fo forcibly as pure nickel. 

 The fame metal, purified with lefs care, was lefs malleable, 

 and proportionally lefs attractable by the magnet. Repeated 

 expofure of the metal to the mod powerful heat of a porce- 

 lain furnace did not in the ieaft reftore to' i t this property. — 

 Some experiments, which I (hall hereafter relate, have con- Copper muft be 

 vinced me, that copper cannot be entirely feparated from *5P arated b y 

 nickel in the humid way, and that the only means of feparat- 

 ing them is to reduce the cupreous oxide of nickel by fire. 



The Tulphuric and muriatic acids have little action upon AcVionof the 

 nickel. The oxide of this metal by the air does nqgdiflblve ^j^* 011 

 even in the latter of thefe acids without the afliftance of a 

 ftrong ebullition. The mod appropriate folvents of nickel are 

 the nitric and nitro-muriatic acids. I have already mentioned, 

 that impure nickel, particularly the cupreous is attacked by 

 the nitric acid with heat and vivacity. The action of the fame 

 acid on pure nickel is a little different, and particularly on the 



* The feparation of the iron fucceeds beft by a rapid evaporation Beit rst>de of 

 of the nitric folution of the ferruginous nickel, by which the iron freeing it from 

 k precipitated in the form of an inlbluble oxide. At the fame time U< ».* 

 a little arfenic is feparated in union with the iron. It is preferable, 

 however, to feparate the arfenic firft, which is cffe&ed by the help 

 of a nitric folution of lead. The lead is afterward to be precipi- 

 tated by a folution of fulphate of potafli. 



hammered 



